Patrick Gardner

Patrick Gardner's performances have been acclaimed by New York audiences, critics, and an international roster of composers whose orchestral and choral works he has conducted. Active in premiering new music, he has won the praise of such notable composers as William Bolcom, John Harbison, Lou Harrison, and Lukas Foss. 

Now in his 35th season as director of the Riverside Choral Society (RCS), Mr. Gardner is Distinguished Professor Emeritus who served as director of choral activities at Rutgers University for thirty years, where he conducted the Rutgers University Kirkpatrick Choir and the Rutgers University Glee Club. In the spring of 2006, RCS and the Rutgers University Kirkpatrick Choir appeared at Lincoln Center with the Kirov Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic in performances of Shostakovich's Second and Third Symphonies under the baton of Valery Gergiev. In October 2006, Mr. Gardner prepared the men of his combined choirs for performances at Lincoln Center, with the Kirov, of Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony, Babi Yar.

In September 2006, Mr. Gardner and the men's choirs, accompanied by Mischa and Cipa Dichter, at Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, presented the world premiere of the two piano version of the first movement of Babi Yar. In 2005, he prepared RCS for presentations of Mahler's Second Symphony with Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and the NJPAC. The New York Times noted RCS's "sublime reading of the choral finale." Mr. Gardner's critically acclaimed preparation of the choral work in Handel's L'Allegro, performed at Lincoln Center in the summer of 2005, led to his engagement to prepare Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas as part of the Mark Morris Dance Group's 25th anniversary season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. 

Recently Mr. Gardner presented concerts in Taichung, Taiwan, and in 2007 Mr. Gardner presented master-classes for professional conductors in the Netherlands for NOVK, Nederlandse Organisatie Voor Koordirigenten. 

Mr. Gardner has prepared the Riverside Choral Society for the Mostly Mozart Festival in performances of Mozart's Requiem and C minor Mass, Haydn's Creation, and numerous other major works. In the past decade, RCS appeared with both the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and London's Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. In the past several years Mr. Gardner has conducted RCS in its own Lincoln Center performances of the Beethoven Missa Solemnis, the Brahms Requiem, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, Mozart's C minor Mass, and Lou Harrison's La Koro Sutro. In November 2005, Mr. Gardner conducted Haydn's Creation at Rutgers University, and the previous October he conducted Handel's Opus 4 Organ Concertos and Coronation Anthem no. 3 with Musica Raritana, a period instrument orchestra of professional instrumentalists and graduate students at Rutgers University. In recent orchestral performances at Rutgers and with the Riverside Choral Society Orchestra Mr. Gardner has conducted the Brahms Second Symphony, the Schubert Fifth Symphony, Haydn's Symphony no. 88, Shostakovich and Mozart piano concerti, the Ibert Flute Concerto, Arvo Pårt's Canticum in Memoriam Benjamin Britten and Jennifer Higdon's Blue Cathedral. 

Mr. Gardner prepared the Rutgers University Glee Club for a performance of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder with the Philadelphia Singers and The Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. He was the chorusmaster for the internationally acclaimed Robert Altman production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at the Opéra de Lille in France. 

Mr. Gardner has recorded for Naxos, Albany, Ethereal, and Folkways records.